


History Written on Skin

by Marta



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: (for certain definitions of 'married' at least), Holmes Brothers' Childhood, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Old Married Couple, Post-Coital Cuddling, he is a very scary goose but Holmes nonetheless is rather brave, there is a goose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 03:38:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17521271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marta/pseuds/Marta
Summary: Watson had let his arm fall while I was deep in those thoughts, and now the hand not resting on my hip was mapping other parts of my body. He wrapped his hand around my forearm, over the discolored skin from an acid burn, a relic of my university experiments. Then with his forefinger he tapped the uglier needle-pricks along my wrist, the price of a 7% solution. Caressed the well-healed knife wound on my shoulder, acquired in Surrey when I had only Hopkins for company but stitched by my doctor's own hand.I’d told him the stories behind each of these marks and others in moments like these, willing ablutions for the mischief I’d gotten into when he wasn’t there to watch over me. But some tales remained untold, the scars a testimony to the confidences we have still to share. And my Watson, my Boswell, is of course the master when it comes to words and story-telling, but I do love bearing my past to him like this. So I was not so surprised when he grasped at my thigh, pulling my leg against my chest so he could better see the puckered skin some six inches beneath my knee.





	History Written on Skin

After – well,  _after_ – I felt myself utterly deboned, as formless as one of the sea-mollusks.

This was hardly unusual. As always, I was content to melt into the cocoon of blankets Watson fashioned for me, letting him clean us off and see to other necessary practicalities as I lay there, waiting for his welcome warmth beside me and capable of little else as the haze of our amorous congress for once held all other thoughts at bay.  And now that he’d joined me once more, why should I think of anything beyond this bed? With his breath ghosting across my shoulders, his callused thumb tracing over my hip, first the  _ilium_ , inching down toward the  _ischium_ , and the  _acetabulum_ , the – my breath caught at the intimacy, no longer charged with erotic intent but still a possession of all that was vulnerable in me – the  _pubic symphisis_ …. Truly, how could I wish to be anywhere else?

(My brother Mycroft would hardly think me capable of such lethargy, devoid of energy and purpose; proof he had never observed me when I had no suitable puzzle to occupy my mind and the black moods fell upon me. Though  _Mycroft_ was hardly the image I most wanted to call to mind just then, and I found myself wrinkling my nose in distaste.)

I felt my head rolling back against Watson’s shoulder, felt too his bristled lips against the nape of my neck, as he – was he laughing? Even now? I started to pull away, the indignity not lost on me even in my much relaxed state, but he tightened his grasp, holding me still. “I was only thinking:  _Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh_.”

I must have murmured something – I certainly  _meant_ to reply – but the words were not quite intelligible even in my own ear. Perhaps it was just a contented sigh. Would he understand? Deciding something more definite was called for, I added, “Where public rites are deemed inapplicable, private ones must suffice. As we have well proven.”

This time the chuckle was unmistakable. The squeeze of his hand to my  _adductor magnus_ , not so far from the other parts of my anatomy he had so recently laid claim to, was perhaps involuntary; as was the way I pushed back against his grasp, reveling in the pressure just  _there_. At that Watson moved his hand back and shook his head in exaggerated dismay.

“You are a menace, Holmes, and a scoundrel,” he said, “and clearly think more of my virulence than I would speak to with any confidence. But  _blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh_ – I only meant you seemed intent on proving the priests wrong and making room for us in that old rite. Melting into me, and I into you, until there could be no more distinction but only  _us_. Not only in our joining but beyond it as well.”

I pulled his wrist to my lips, enjoying the way his elbow bent so easily at my prodding. “Yes. ‘ _And the two shall become one_.’ I would have thought our earlier activities would have provided the primary point of contention.”

“Perhaps,” Watson answered; “or perhaps not. Father Joseph would argue otherwise, don’t you think?” We had spoke on more than one occasion of the chaplain he’d known in Afghanistan, how he’d taken such a progressive view of the comforts men engaged in her majesty’s service might take in each other’s company. Watson had been impressed by his pragmatic streak, and his sympathy for the daughters of a nearby village who could not easily reject a soldier’s attentions. But even his Father Joseph would have fallen short of sanctioning what had grown between Watson and myself, so many years of acquaintance and growing intimacies that surely by now approached the sacramental. Disordered, he would call us, and think himself being kind in that mild condemnation.

Perhaps Watson was correct; perhaps we provided the deeper challenge.

Watson had let his arm fall while I was deep in those thoughts, and now the hand not resting on my hip was mapping other parts of my body. He wrapped his hand around my forearm, over the discolored skin from an acid burn, a relic of my university experiments. Then with his forefinger he tapped the uglier needle-pricks along my wrist, the price of a 7% solution. Caressed the well-healed knife wound on my shoulder, acquired in Surrey when I had only Hopkins for company but stitched by my doctor’s own hand.

I’d told him the stories behind each of these marks and others in moments like these, willing ablutions for the mischief I’d gotten into when he wasn’t there to watch over me. But some tales remained untold, the scars a testimony to the confidences we have still to share. And my Watson, my Boswell, is of course the master when it comes to words and story-telling, but I do love bearing my past to him like this. So I was not so surprised when he grasped at my thigh, pulling my leg against my chest so he could better see the puckered skin some six inches beneath my knee.

“I don’t think you’ve told me of this one yet,” he said, tracing the line between the scar and healthy skin. I turned my head away, trying to hide the giggle threatening to make itself known, but Watson was not so easily fooled, these days. “Are you  _ticklish,_ Holmes?” He strummed three fingers along the  _tibialis anterior_ , and this time I did not hold back. “I would have thought whatever misadventure marked you so would have dulled the nerves as well.” A kiss to the nape of my neck, a manipulation clearly meant to make me more amenable to sharing, but I hardly minded.

“I was four,” I started. “Or five? Quite young in any event, but just old enough to take an interest in my father’s laboratory. It was a hobby of his, you see, chemistry, and he’d converted an old carpentry shed into a workspace. The equipment was quite expensive, perhaps he didn’t think I’d take proper care; or perhaps he just enjoyed having a bit of space for own use.”

“This was your family’s estate, yes? Your father was lord of the house?”

I nodded. “But my mother was a proud woman, and there was too little coin and too many obligations to meet them all easily. She put a premium on appearances, and he I think was most himself when he was pottering around that workshop in well-patched slacks.” I felt myself shrugging, as if he’d needed justification for excluding me, at that age. “Mycroft he allowed in, as his school-work required. I suppose I thought they’d let me in too if I only had a reason.”

“You were a budding chemist at the age of four?” Watson asked. I felt the curl of his lips against my skin and found I was smiling, too.

“Or five,” I corrected. “And truly, it was the lure of being so near them – Mycroft was home from his first term at Harrow – that, and the gleam of all that copper piping, and the bright-colored solutions. As I said, I was quite young.”

“My magpie,” he said fondly. Watson released my thigh, wrapping his now-free arm around my waist. Anchoring me. “Will you go on?” he said after a moment’s silence.

“There was an old fish-pond back behind the house. I liked to watch them, and the hawk-moths, you know, they favored the jasmine-bushes we had planted near it. Hawk-moths fascinated – fascinate – me, their social structure can be nearly as intricate as bees. And the anatomy of their wings: they simply should not be able to beat so quickly. And the sturgeons and the minnows, sometimes they would pause in their swimming and look up at me.” I knew I was obfuscating, unintentionally perhaps but even so. My childhood had been a lonely one, and I did not enjoy letting others see the child I’d been – even Watson. Especially him, perhaps. But best to get on with it. “I could lay there for hours on end, under the bushes’ shade, and lose myself in their company.”

To his credit, Watson did let me proceed at my own pace. He simply held me, his grasp and his breath and the warmth of his body a steadying presence. I turned myself in his arms so I faced him, could read his expression for any clues to a negative reaction, but I found only curiosity, and patience.

“There was algae,” I continued at last, “all along the pond’s surface, around the stone-rim, but mostly it was green and clumpy. Near the jasmine-bush, though, I had recently noticed a different kind entirely, more blue and stringy than I’d seen before. And I’d heard Mother warning the gardener against using a certain chemical as fertilizer on her hydrangeas. I knew enough, from reading over Mycroft’s shoulders, to know certain chemicals had different effects on different strains of plants, encouraging the growth of some and killing off others entirely. And so, I remember thinking: this was much better than catching our gardener in the act, this was  _proof_ , clear and incontrovertible.

Watson arched an eyebrow at that. “With malice aforethought?”

“Well, perhaps not in so many words,” I said. “But the sentiment, certainly. I didn’t want to cause trouble, of course, but the prospect of knowing, the thrill of the chase….”

His thumb at my hip thrummed against my skin. “I know. I’ve seen.” I felt myself blushing; he had, and he remembered, of course he did. “Were the hydrangeas down by the pond as well?” he asked.

“No; they were up by the house, framing the porch.” Somehow that thought had never occurred to me in all these years, that even had those chemicals got into the pond, that would hardly have violated my mother’s orders. “I was quite young,” I said in my defense.

“Mmmm. And yet that doesn’t explain a wound of this type.”

“The path was quite narrow,” I explained, “between the jasmine-bush and the wall of the pond, and narrower still on the other side. If I went round that way I knew I’d come out covered in sap, and as I said, my mother was a force to be reckoned with. So I opted for the more direct approach, which would hardly have posed a problem if not for the goose blocking the path.”

“You fought a goose.”

“Clearly.”

“Why does anyone try to fight a goose?”

“Sometimes the goose gives you no option.”

Watson gave a proper laugh, this time undeniable. “You might have scared him off the path, or waited until he lost interest and went away on his own. Or – “ He shook his head in disbelief and favored me with a quick kiss along my clavicle in contrition. “I remember. Four years of age.”

“Or five,” I objected.

“And the illicit allure of a shiny laboratory. You never have suffered from an overabundance of patience, love.”

“You will recall those two hours seventeen minutes we spent in near-total silence in the abandoned factory outside Brockham – “

Another act of penance, this time to the scapular head. “A skill you have much improved in the intervening years, I am sure, but at such a young age…”

I ran my thumb along his lower lip. “Granted. And yes: I fought a goose. In retrospect I might have approached the situation otherwise, but at the time it seemed quite necessary.”

“And?” Watson prodded.

“And what? Have you ever fought a goose?”

“That particular opportunity never arose on the streets of Aberdeen,” he answered drily, though from my improved position I could see the good humor in his eyes.

“And did you catch your man?”

“Woman.” Ah! So I could still surprise him. “Or girl. Josie was our stable-master’s daughter, sixteen at the time, and a master of all things horticultural. Or a mistress, I suppose.”

“You had a woman as a gardener?” Watson asked. “That must have been quite the scandal.”

“Indeed, but she didn’t seem to mind. Cared more for her art than the good opinion of her neighbors, a sentiment I can certainly understand. We got along quite well, until I went off to school myself and she moved down to St. Giles, and married a railway engineer. But that is another story entirely.” Someday I would direct Watson’s attention to the line on my left heel, sliced open on a conch shell and treated with a poultice Josie had prepared for me; the scar was so faint, he would never notice it unaided.

“As for the algae,” I continued, “when I at last confessed the cause of my injury and told Mother about the new strain, she chided me, and told me as she redressed the wound with antiseptic how we were getting a new fish the next week. A koi-carp; it thrived on different vegetation. So there was no mystery after all: simply my overactive imagination and the boredom of an autumn's day.” I frowned. “They never did invite me to join them. Mycroft, or Father. Mycroft didn’t poke fun, which I suppose was nice in his way, but he didn’t invite me in either.”

“Well,” Watson said after a long moment’s silence. “I do hope you gained some wisdom at least, from hiding your injury away. Though my own experience would argue against it.” That puzzled me – surely certain aspects of the investigation could have been handled with more forethought and less risk, the goose not least among them, but hiding the wound particularly? Watson lifted my thigh again until my leg lay bent against his torso, kissed his finger and traced the referred intimacy over the puckered skin.

“You could accept help when it’s offered,” he said, his voice dropped a half-octave at the possibilities our current position suggested. “You could make it known when you need it. We do not all have your skill at seeing the near-invisible. And it would be a shame to lose such – sensation.”

I felt my face flush, and nodded. If I but altered our position, pulled his body a few inches up toward the headboard so we could lay in closer parallel – but no. We were not young men; neither of our bodies could easily rush down that heady path so soon, and I felt Morpheus’s beguiling presence calling me. With Watson by my side I thought I could rest easily.

“You’ll notice my more recent scars,” I said. “The after-effects of infection are much less common. Nearly nonexistent, I’d say.”

“An advantage of sharing rooms with a doctor,” Watson said.

“And of having more reason to live long in his care.” I smiled drowsily down at him. “You’d like the estate in Sussex, you know. If you have so little experience with geese, perhaps we should correct that one of these days. I could be your protector. And they have sheep, and ducks besides.” Again, I felt more than saw the curve of those bristle-covered lips against my skin, knowing he was smiling at the sentiment that often overtook me between the combined intoxications of release and impending sleep.

To his credit he did not give voice to those deductions. Instead, he turned to extinguish the candle before once more settling beside me. “Perhaps, Holmes; perhaps.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> vampireapologist’s Tumblr post [here](http://more-things-in-heavenandearth.tumblr.com/post/182167069986) inspired this bit of ridiculousness. Because let’s face it: Sherlock Holmes, in any ‘verse and not just at this tender age, is precisely the type who’d acquire such a scar.
> 
> Brit-picked by aristofranes. As always, thank you.


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